Slogging Through

This is such a weird time, isn’t it? People I know are dropping right and left of heart attacks and overdoses. Everyone is in a funk. Two friends were in major accidents this week, one is still in the hospital and the other one will be recovering for quite a while. There’s a full moon this Friday the 13th and I’ve been told that solar flares are messing with everyone’s psyche this week as well.

I found out about one of those accidents yesterday, right before I left the apartment to go to Chinatown to see a new gyno about my hormone…ahem…issues. Her office is located right next to a fish market. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?

My beautiful friend Kim Montenegro broke her arm in two places and had to have surgery to put steel plates in, and I walked down Ludlow Street in a sort of daze and panic as I tried to digest this new information after reading it on facebook as I put on my shoes to leave. She doesn’t live in New York so I couldn’t just run to her hospital, and instead kept with my plans for the day. But it felt weird and wrong. Was Kim okay? Was she in pain? What if she died? I stopped cold when I noticed yet another luxury high rise going up in the middle of a block, surrounded by Soho style overpriced clothing stores and gourmet coffee shops. Another one, really?? How is this possible? I stood looking up in frozen anxiety attack. My city in ruin, my friends in danger and pain. It’s all too much to bear. I am a ghost in this town full of people I don’t understand, who don’t understand me. I am lost. Who am I anymore? I was once so sure of everything: where I wanted to live, what I was going to do, who I was going to do it with. Now I know nothing except that lately my heart aches quite a bit in the most nebulous and drifting way.

I’ve been a little bitter after the whole promised cosmic shift of 2012 didn’t happen. I feel like I was lied to by a bunch of new-agey busybodies talking out of their asses. Fuck you, where’s my giant space head full of psychic clarity and cheerful good will? I feel like I did when I was little and someone asked me if I wanted to go to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream. I thought I would get an actual basket of robins along with my ice cream and was devastated to learn there would be no free pets that day. Which sort of shows what a spoiled brat I must have been, because ice cream is pretty great. But that’s how this non-shift shift feels to me. Like an epic, I-was-told there’d-be-pretty-birds style rip-off.

My mother maintains that things are moving consciousness-wise and that we are being asked to release all old energy in order to clear the way for higher vibrations and better days. I covered this in a bit more detail in the last blog, and yes, I do feel it in some ways, but it isn’t happening fast enough for me. I’m tired of clearing, of dealing with issues, of feeling sadness and confusion. I’m angry that I found my place in the world and it’s disappeared underneath my feet. And I feel like I’ve been working on this mental/emotional/spiritual crap my whole life. I was promised ascension, goddamnit, something magical and wonderful. I was picturing Hogwarts without the Malfoys (sorry, nerd-reference), instead I find myself trapped in the worst possible version of the 1950’s: all jock-culture and corporate white men in suits, with the modernizing additions of Jersey turnpiking and Miley Cyrus tongue-wagging. And every day some new monster shoots up a school and himself and the argument against guns begins anew. Mental care! Gun reform! My cold dead hands. ‘Merica!! Mankind is still so unevolved; we’re practically digging in the dirt for grubs. How is this even close to anything resembling ascension?

And the arguments for solutions to societal problems look increasingly pointless. The gun thing now appears to me to be a spiritual malaise more than a political or legal one. I pray for the families of the people who are hurt or killed because that’s all that I can think of to do. I’m over arguing it on facebook. I’m not going to change Joe the plumber or Ted Nugent’s mind. Why waste my breath or typing skills on it? The only thing that makes sense to me any more is simple compassion for those who are hurting. Everything else seems like tilting at windmills.

Oi! This is depressing and whiny. Sorry! It’s momentary and could just be the hormones talking. I do have a lot of fun and have an amazing life and a lot of gratitude for it. I know I’m luckier than many. I’m not discounting any of that.

I did have a moment standing in front of that awful skeleton of a high rise where, after the wave of sadness and fear went through me, a realization stepped into its place: that much of this intense heaviness has to do with forgiveness of self. The connection doesn’t seem logical, but I was sort of free-falling emotionally and that’s where the thoughts landed. That we walk around carrying the weight of our own self-loathing, that we are all so much more ready to forgive others than we are ourselves. We can’t forgive ourselves for decades-old mistakes, for aging, for bad decisions, for being selfish, for being fat, skinny, messy, impatient, stupid, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. We can’t forgive our many imperfections and transgressions, real or imagined. But if we could, if we could be as kind to ourselves as we are to new boyfriends or our dogs or celebrities that we think are cool, we would feel so much lighter and more free.

It wasn’t so much a light bulb moment as it was a wash of that same compassion and sadness I feel for those bereft families, except it was for all of us, including myself, which felt new. So in the spirit of trying to get to that lighter place, I am writing today primarily to share some resources that are helping me stay sane (relatively so) for the time being, while whatever is supposed to be sorting itself out gets sorted.

First, apps: I’m obsessed with self-help apps lately. First two are “Hay House Radio” and “Hay House Now”. If you are not familiar with Louise Hay, get familiar. She was ahead of her time when people first started getting into metaphysics, and she has created a large and lovely world of spiritual resource, much of it free. Everything coming from her direction has a very gentle energy, and we need gentle now more than ever.

If you are already familiar with much of this self-help stuff, some of the radio will get a bit annoying in that precious NPR kind of way…

https://screen.yahoo.com/npr-delicious-dish-dusty-muffin-000000345.html

I prefer “Hay House Now” to the radio because you can pull up free lectures on subjects you find interesting rather than randomly tuning in, but you can also occasionally hit on some very interesting teachers and conversations on the radio that you might have overlooked otherwise. Currently I’m fascinated by Doreen Virtue and Kyle Grey, who both work with angels, but dig around for what resonates with you personally. I’ve found that books or images connected to something that will resonate strongly with me almost shine visually brighter than others on the shelf or screen, but it’s all varied paths to the same end, I think? I hope?

Another app that I’m loving is Mindifi hypnosis. They’ve got a variety and each app variant gives you one main hypnosis and urges you to buy the related versions. You don’t have to do that unless you want, I haven’t bought any yet and am currently addicted to the one that helps you sleep. You’re supposed to listen to it sitting up and then go to bed, but I plug in the earphones, turn out the lights and am drooling into the pillow within minutes, which has not happened in forever. I frigging love being hypnotised, it’s like having someone else do the work for you.  My only complaint so far is the lose weight hypnosis; the soothing voice keeps going on about “healthy weight”. Screw that. I want to be hypnotized into super-skinny-get-mistaken-from-behind-for-a-16-year-old-cheerleader weight. Still looking for that one, I feel quite sure that I’ll be able to forgive myself completely if I lose 20 lbs. But at least I’m getting a little more sleep now.

Web-wise, my friend Jessica Beckwith turned me on to Mystic Mamma: http://www.mysticmamma.com/. It’s female slanted, but that doesn’t mean men can’t check it out, and I like the blogger’s mix of the spiritual and astrological. Women are so governed by the changes of the moon, any man who wants to understand why his girlfriend is nuts half the time could look there for some answers. Jess also just informed me that women change every three days with the moon, which explains a lot: http://www.3ho.org/3ho-lifestyle/women/moon-centers

Jessica has recently started a business doing what she calls “Catalyst Sessions” using her 20+ years as a business enterpreneur, yoga instructor, spiritual student, artist and all around energy intuitive to help people hone in on what they really want to be doing and how to take steps to do it. She is giving me a free session, because a) she’s a generous soul and b) it’s painfully clear that I need some guidance. So I will be sure to let you know how it goes, and the meantime, if you are interested in something like that let me know and I will pass on more info. She is not advertising at the moment because it’s deep work and not something to toss into the ether in a random way.

Okay, that’s all I have for now. I have been asked to write a gaming column for a friend’s new zine, and as you can imagine, I am very excited that someone is willing to make my bullshit look legitimate, so I will post that as soon as it’s out.